McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland
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- ISBN13: 9780312311339
- Condition: New
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Product Description
Despite the many exotic places Pete McCarthy has visited, he finds that nowhere else can match the particular magic of Ireland, his mother’s homeland. In McCarthy’s Bar, his journey starts in Cork and continues along the west coast to Donegal in the north. Traveling through spectacular landscapes, but at all times obeying the rule, “never pass a bar that has your name on it,” he encounters McCarthy’s bars up and down the land, meeting fascinating people before pleading to be let out at four o’clock in the morning.
Written by a name who is at once an insider and an outside, McCarthy’s Bar is a wonderfully amusing and affectionate portrait of a rapidly changing country.
Amazon.com Review
Although Pete McCarthy was raised in England, his mother hails from West Cork, and, despite never having lived there, he can’t shake the weird feeling that Ireland is more home than home. A return pilgrimage reveals immediately why he (or anyone, for that matter) feels “involved and engaged” in Ireland. On arriving at the airport in Cork he’s greeted by a guy in a giant rubber Celtic cross getup who’s telling jokes with a latter-day St. Patrick (the guy who cast all snakes and pagans out of Ireland). Later, when McCarthy happens to mention that his surname matches that of the pub he’s in (ever faithful to his Eighth Rule of Travel: “Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name on It”), the owner buys him a Guinness, invites him to her raucous all-night birthday party, then insists he go to Ireland because, well, obviously he belongs. McCarthy’s Second Rule of Travel states: “The More Bright Primary Colours and Very ancient Celtic Symbols Outside the Pub, the More Phoney the Interior.” While the island is turning into a haven for upmarket tourists–and McCarthy offers outstanding examples of bumbleheaded tourists in action–he still finds plenty of pubs where you can buy a bicycle and which still exist primarily as venues for conversation and Irish composition sessions.
While most travel writers seek out opportunities to meet the legendary–or the infamous–McCarthy has the charming knack of just bumping into them on his rambles, which is how he met Noel Redding, formerly of Jimi Hendrix’s band, and the leader Frank McCourt. Far more appealing, though, are the eccentric and talkative bachelors and landladies who turn up in pubs, B&Bs, and the middle of the road. McCarthy has mastered the art of getting creatively lost, wandering the back lanes of Ireland where the hype of tourism has yet to arrive, pursuing stone circles, intolerably romantic ruined abbeys, and, of course, pubs. What he discovers is that “In Ireland, the unexpected happens more than you expect,” which makes for a hilarious tour through one of the most gorgeous, friendly, and odd places on planet with a comedian who has honed the art of telling a excellent tale and of having fun. –Lesley Reed
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This book was recommended by a friend (not Irish) who thought it was hilarious. I establish the book so missing in humour and wit that I couldn’t judge a name could delight in such a read. National stereotypes are amusing but when they are not amusing they come across as patronising, as did this book!
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
McCarthy’s Bar was recommended by a friend who is very British. Sorry to say, and somebody please tell him, so is Pete McCarthy. I never read an leader who seemed as touchingly desperate to be Irish. Expecting excellent humor, appealing tales, and at the least well written prose, I was dissappointed to learn in the pages of this book perhaps the worst travel prose I have ever come across. It is completely missing in depth, humor (it is touted as a humorous peice), insight, or even decent observation. It is one of the worst books I have read in years. Pete McCarthy, congrats on landing a book deal, as you certainly did not deserve it. Sorry Pete, spendng summers there as a kid makes you about as Irish as the predictable stout American tourist. Not at all.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
There are two glaring errors with Mr. McCarthy’s book. One, it is in terrible need of an editor – not to clear typos or misspelling but because it deviates into beside the point anecdotes that fail to erect around his travels in Ireland. A excellent editor would have cut-rate this book into either a magazine article or fleeting tale. If he tried to pull off a Joyce’s stream of consciousness, a la Ulysses, he fails.
The more troubling error is that Mr. McCarthy incorrectly describes the Irish. Any antipathy that the Irish feel towards the English, whether warranted or not, is perpetuated by Mr. McCarthy’s fallaciousness. And just because he spent a few summers in West Cork when he was a child and has an Irish surname does not mean he is an insider as the back take in of his book claims. You are an English tourist, full stop. What’s next, a book on Boston because your surname is Irish and you have been to a Paddy’s Day parade which qualifies you as Bostonian insider?
I wish this book had come with a money back guarantee. Hollywood does a better job at describing Ireland than Mr. McCarthy, and that’s not adage much.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I am not going to win any friends with this review. The people who buy this book are people buying into the whole Ireland myth of everyone being friendly and the craic being fantastic. Pete himself buys into this whole ideal and at first the book chugs along with a dash of wit and a fantastic pace… by the end there is no pace, no shades of light and dark and certainly no humour.
Pete has written a book that is a crock of steaming drivel…not the crock of gold that most of the people who read this book will feel that it is. Clichéd, blinkered and tired. (And Pete, you aren’t Irish, much as you’d like to be: – you’re English-Get over it!)
And in case anyone thinks this is a knock the Irish review, I live here and holiday exclusively around Ireland every year- but this is written with such unimaginative broad strokes that it deserves to have criticism heaped upon it… watch out for the Leprechauns there Pete, you Guinness drinking wild man you.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
The pot-shots at Americans get ancient real quick, as you can tell he embellishes his run-ins with them for dramatic effect
I establish myself skipping over many parts becasue he goes off on cynical rants about everything “not-local” about a place.
Spare us please, there are 270 million of us and we are not all on our first trip out of the country, not all of us have stout, dopey butts, and we are not all from Texas!
If you want to write about the real Ireland stay out of Killarney and Dingle during the high-season….
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5